They say that history loves irony, loves to play jokes on people. One enters a room—and finds oneself in another. In history this happens constantly with people, groups, and tendencies that have not understood, have not grasped their own true essence—that is, which classes they actually (and not in their imagination) gravitate toward. Whether this misunderstanding is sincere or hypocritical is a question that may interest the biographer of one individual or another, but for the politician this question is in any case secondary.

What is essential is how history and politics unmask little groups and tendencies, laying bare beneath "also-socialist" or "also-Marxist" phrases their bourgeois essence. In the epoch of bourgeois-democratic revolutions everywhere, throughout the world, dozens of little groups and tendencies imagined themselves and presented themselves as "socialist" (see, for example, the enumeration of some of them in the 3rd chapter of Marx and Engels' *Communist Manifesto*{129}). History quickly—in the course of some 10–20 years or less—unmasked them.

Russia is passing through precisely such an epoch.

More than 10 years have passed since the time when "Economists" began to break away from the workers' movement here, then their successors the "Mensheviks," then the successors of the Mensheviks—the "Liquidators."

The Mensheviks especially loudly cried out about the "rapprochement" of the Bolsheviks with the Populists…

And now, before us stands fully evident an already well-defined alliance of Liquidators and Populists against the working class and the Bolsheviks who have remained loyal to this class.

An alliance of petty-bourgeois intelligentsia, Liquidationist and Populist, against the workers grows and spreads spontaneously. At first it was driven toward this by "practice"—hence the saying that practice advances ahead of theory (especially among those guided by false theory). When in Petersburg the workers "removed from their posts" the Liquidators, expelling these representatives of bourgeois influence from the leadership of the trade unions, from responsible positions in the insurance committees, the Liquidators themselves found themselves in alliance with the Populists.

"As soon as," wrote one sincere and naive Populist in No. 5 of *Bold Thought*, "we entered the premises (for elections to the Insurance Council), the narrow-fractional position of the Pravdists immediately became clear, but we do not lose hope. Together with the Liquidators we constitute a common non-fractional list, where we are allotted one place among the Council members and two among alternates" (see *Path of Truth* No. 38 of March 16, 1914).

Poor Liquidators, how maliciously history played a joke on them! How mercilessly their new "friend and ally," the left Populist, exposed them!

The Liquidators had not even managed to renounce their own, most formal declarations and resolutions of 1903 and other years, in which left-Populists were declared to be bourgeois democracy.

History swept aside the phrases, dispersed the illusions, laid bare the class essence of the little groups. Both Populists and Liquidators are little groups of petty-bourgeois intelligentsia, repudiated by the Marxist workers' movement and seeking to worm their way into it through deception.

Serving this deception is the little word "factionalism"—the very same word which the notorious Akimov, leader of the "Economists," employed in his struggle against the Iskrists at the second party congress in 1903. Akimov's little word, the little word of an extreme opportunist, remained the sole weapon of the Liquidators and Populists. The journal *Contemporary* appeared into the world, as if deliberately, to show more vividly to all literate people the rottenness, the worthlessness, the rustiness of this weapon.

An unprecedented phenomenon in our democratic journalistic world is represented by this *Contemporary*. Alongside the casual names of contributors (whom necessity does not drive into other people's journals to seek earnings!), we see an overtly demonstrative joining of names, intended to signify a joining of tendencies.

The liberal Bogucharsky, the Populists Sukhanov, Rakitnikov, B. Voronov, V. Chernov and others, the Liquidators Dan, Martov, Trotsky, Sher (Potresov was announced in No. 66 of the *Northern Workers' Gazette* alongside Plekhanov, but disappeared… for some reason), the Machists Bazarov, Lunacharsky, and finally the chief hero of "unity" (both with a small and with a capital letter) G. V. Plekhanov—these are the demonstrative names that shine forth in the list of *Contemporary's* contributors. And in complete correspondence with this, the main point of the journal's orientation is the preaching (by Populists) of the union of Populists and "Marxists" (no joking!).

What this preaching is like, let the reader judge from the articles of the journal's leader, Mr. Sukhanov. Here are several essential "thoughts" of this gentleman:

"…The old groupings in any case are liquidated. It is already impossible to establish where Marxism ends and Populism begins. On both sides—both Populism and Marxism. And both sides—both non-Marxist and non-'Populist'. But could it have been and can it be otherwise? Can every collectivist in the twentieth century not think in Marxist terms? And can every socialist in Russia not be a Populist?

…Concerning the contemporary Marxist agrarian program, one should say precisely the same thing that was said last time about the Populist one: it is Marxist in the methods of its foundation and Populist in its practical tasks. It appeals to the 'historical course of things,' and it seeks to embody the slogan: land and liberty" (No. 7, p. 75–76).

Seems like enough?

This Mr. Sukhanov publicly boasts that Plekhanov agrees with him. And Plekhanov is silent!

But look at Mr. Sukhanov's reasoning.

The new ally of Plekhanov and the Liquidators has "liquidated" the distinction between Marxism and Populism on the grounds that both currents, supposedly, according to their practical tasks, embody the slogan: land and liberty.

This is entirely and literally the argumentation that defends the "unity" of workers with the bourgeoisie. For example, according to their "practical" tasks, the working class and the liberal bourgeoisie "seek to embody," one might say, the slogan: constitution. The clever Mr. Sukhanov ought to conclude from this that the grouping into proletariat and bourgeoisie is "liquidated," that "it is impossible to establish where" proletarian and begins bourgeois democracy.

Take the text of the Marxist agrarian program. Sukhanov acts like all liberal bourgeois, who snatch up a "practical" slogan ("constitution"!) and declare the distinction between socialist and bourgeois worldview to be "abstractly-theoretical"!! But we permit ourselves to think that the conscious worker, like any conscious politician, finds it interesting to know the significance and meaning of practical slogans, finds it interesting which class these slogans serve and how exactly they serve it.

We open the Marxist agrarian program (which Mr. Sukhanov invokes in order to distort it shamelessly) and at once encounter, alongside practical points debated among Marxists (for example, municipalization), indisputable points:

"In order to eliminate the remnants of the feudal order, which lie as a heavy oppression directly upon the peasants, and in the interests of the free development of class struggle in the countryside…"—thus begins the Marxist agrarian program. For Mr. Sukhanov this is an unimportant "abstract theory"! Do we want a constitution for the free development of class struggle between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie, or for "social reconciliation" between workers and capitalists—this is not important, this is "abstract theory," so all bourgeois assure us.

The bourgeoisie correctly express their class interests in assuring this to the workers. Mr. Sukhanov acts entirely like a bourgeois, pushing aside the question of what we need agrarian transformations for: is it for the free development of class struggle of wage workers against their masters and little masters, or for "social reconciliation" among them by means of bourgeois little words about "labor" economy?

Reading a bit further in the Marxist agrarian program: the Marxists "…will always and invariably oppose all attempts to retard the course of economic development." It is known that Marxists precisely for this reason declare any, however slight, restriction of the freedom of land mobilization (buying and selling, mortgaging, etc.) to be a reactionary measure, most harmful for workers and for all social development.

Populists, from "social-Cadet" Peshekhonov to the left-Populists of *Bold Thought*, are for one or another restriction on the freedom of land mobilization. Populists—the most harmful reactionaries on this question, say Marxists.

Mr. Sukhanov sidesteps this! He does not wish to recall how Plekhanov called Populists "reactionary socialists" for this. From "abstract theory" Mr. Sukhanov waves his hand, citing "practice"—and from "practice" (freedom of land mobilization of peasant lands) he waves his hand, citing in general the slogan "land and liberty."

The conclusion is clear: Mr. Sukhanov is nothing other than a bourgeois, obscuring the class antagonism between workers and masters.

And it is precisely such bourgeois that the Marxist agrarian program has in mind when it says:

"…In all cases and in all circumstances of democratic agrarian transformations…" (note: in all cases and in all circumstances, that is, both under municipalization and under partition and under any other possible variation)… Marxists "set before themselves the task of striving unceasingly toward the independent class organization of the rural proletariat, explaining to it the irreconcilable antagonism of its interests to the interests of the peasant bourgeoisie, warning it against the seductions of the system of petty economy, which, so long as commodity production exists, is never able to eliminate the poverty of the masses," and so forth.

Thus speaks the Marxist agrarian program. Thus speaks precisely that point of it which was accepted by the Mensheviks at the Stockholm congress from the project of the Bolsheviks, that is, the most indisputable, most universally recognized among Marxists point.

Thus speaks the most essential point in the question of Populism, treating precisely the "system of petty economy."

And Mr. Sukhanov passes over this point in complete silence!!

Mr. Sukhanov has "liquidated" the "old grouping" of tendencies, their division into Marxism and Populism, by means of passing over in silence the clear and precise words of the "Marxist agrarian program" against Populism!!

Doubt is impossible: Mr. Sukhanov is the emptiest prattler, of which there are many in the salons of our liberal "society," a society that has no conception of Marxism and readily "liquidates" some sort of socialist groupings into Marxism and Populism.

But in reality Marxism and Populism divide an abyss both theoretically and practically. Marx's theory is a theory of the development of capitalism and of the class struggle of wage workers against their masters. The theory of Populism is a bourgeois prettification of capitalism by means of little words about "labor" economy, is a theory of obscuring, darkening, and retarding class struggle by means of those same little words, by means of defense of restrictions on mobilization and so forth.

Historically, practice has laid bare the depth of the abyss between Marxism and Populism in Russia—not the practice of slogans, of course, for only the emptiest people can consider "slogans" to be "practice"—but the practice of open mass struggle of millions in 1905–1907. This practice showed the fusion of Marxism with the workers' movement and the fusion (or the beginning of fusion) of Populism with the movement of petty-bourgeois peasantry (the Peasant Union{130}, elections to the I and II State Duma, the peasant movement, and so forth).

Populism is bourgeois democracy in Russia.

This is proven by half a century of evolution of this tendency and by the open appearance of millions in 1905–1907. This has been recognized repeatedly in the most decisive and official manner by the highest institutions of Marxist "wholeness" from 1903 to 1907 and to the summer conference of 1913.

If now we see a literary union of the leaders of Populism (Chernov, Rakitnikov, Sukhanov) and various intelligentsia factions of the S.-D.s, either directly going against the underground, that is, the workers' party (the Liquidators[49] Dan, Martov, Cherevarin), or helping those same Liquidators—little groups without workers (Trotsky and Sher, Bazarov, Lunacharsky, Plekhanov)—then before us stands nothing other than an alliance of bourgeois intelligentsia against workers.

The unity of workers on the ground of genuine recognition of the underground and of the exact resolutions that unite and direct tactics in the spirit of the old (the resolutions of January 1912, February and summer 1913), we see in Pravdism. It is a fact that Pravdism has united in reality from January 1, 1912 to May 13, 1914 5,674 workers' groups against 1,421 of the Liquidators and zero or almost zero of the Vperyodist groups, of Plekhanov, of Trotsky with Sher, and so forth. (See the newspaper *Worker* No. 1, "From the History of the Workers' Press in Russia," p. 19 and *Labor Truth* No. 2 of May 30, 1914.[50])

It is a fact that this unity of workers stands on firm ground of principally consistent, integral, complete resolutions on all questions of the life of Marxist-workers. Here is where the "wholeness" is, because 4/5 have the most absolute right to appear, act, and speak in the name of the "whole."

And the alliance in *Contemporary* of the leaders of Populism and all sorts of S.-D. little groups without workers (without precise tactics, without precise resolutions, with nothing but oscillations between the current and the wholeness of Pravdism, on the one hand, and the Liquidators on the other)—this alliance has come together spontaneously. Not one of the "S.-D. little groups without workers" has dared to come out directly, clearly, openly—as the summer conference of 1913 came out against alliance with the Populists—in favor of such an alliance! Not one little group—neither the Liquidators, nor the Vperyodists, nor Plekhanov and Co., nor Trotsky and Co.! They all simply drifted with the current, caught up by opposition to Pravdism, drawn by the desire to smash or weaken it, seeking instinctively help against 4/5 of the workers from one another—the Liquidators from Sukhanov and Chernov, Sukhanov and Chernov from Plekhanov, Plekhanov from the preceding ones, Trotsky from them and so forth. Not a single policy, not a single tactic, at all well-defined, not a single open appearance before the workers in defense of alliance with the Populists—nothing of the sort exists in all these little groups.

This is the most unprincipled alliance of bourgeois intelligentsia against workers. Let us pity Plekhanov for finding himself in such sad company, but let us look truth straight in the face. Let whoever wishes call this alliance of little groups "unity"—we call it a split from the workers' whole, and the facts prove the correctness of our view.